Erin McCarthy - Sweet

My phone rang on the coffee table. I glanced at the screen, and my amusement disappeared. “Oh, shit, that’s my mom. I have to answer this.” I picked up my phone and gave Riley a pleading look. “Please don’t say anything, okay? Just give me five minutes.”

His eyebrows went up. “Sure, no problem.”

I would have thought he would get up and leave the room, but he didn’t. Of course, it was his house and his pizza, so there was no reason for him to move to the kitchen. Heart hammering in my chest, I answered the phone, standing up so I could pace the room. “Hello?”

“Oh, Jessica! I’m surprised I was able to catch you. I was expecting your voice mail.”

Somehow my mother always made it sound like an accusation that I had picked up her phone call. Yet if I didn’t answer, she was equally annoyed. No way to win, ever.

“Yeah, well, we’re on the bus.”

“Yes.”

“Yes, what?” I asked blankly.

“Yes, not yeah. That is not a word.”

Damn it. I clenched my hand into a fist and took a deep breath. “Sorry. Yes, we are on the bus. This may be my last chance for decent reception.”

“Oh, okay. Well, I only have a minute. I just wanted to let you know that we got a ticket for you and a guest to the fund-raiser in three weeks for the new wing at Daddy’s church. It’s important for you to be there.”

Ugh. I would rather get a Brazilian wax than spend five minutes at one of those horrible events where everyone sucked up to my dad and he charmed them out of cash. “Mom, I can’t go to that. How am I supposed to get back?”

“I’m sure you know someone who can help you out. This is very important, Jessica. We’ve been working toward this for two years. The congregation essentially pays for your education, so the very least you can do is put on a dress and smile for an hour.”

Ah, of course. The Lord giveth, and the Lord taketh away. My parents were giving me financial support, and they could take it away at any minute, and my mother loved to remind me of that on a regular basis.

“I understand that, but if I’m in West Virginia. I can’t just buzz up to Troy for the night. People are counting on me.” Which was bullshit, and I hated lying, but I hated being manipulated even more.

“Your father will be very disappointed.” There was a sniff of disapproval, then she added, “Well, let me know as soon as you can.”

I kind of already had let her know. But whatever. “Fine. I’ll try to call you next week. By the way, Kylie is bringing my stuff over to the house tomorrow.”

“Fine, fine,” my mother said, clearly done with the conversation now that she had gotten her guilt trip in. “The housekeeper can let her in. Behave yourself, Jessica.”

“I always do.” It just depended on your definition of behave. “Bye, Mom.”

There was no response. My mother was notorious for just ending the call without a good-bye. Usually she handed the phone to her assistant to tuck back inside her Louis Vuitton purse.

I sighed and crammed my phone in the pocket of my shorts. Riley was eyeing me. “Yes?” I asked defensively, even though I knew what he was thinking.

“You’re in West Virginia, huh?” he asked, looking amused. “And what, pray tell, are you doing in West Virginia?”

Biting my nail, I eyed him defiantly, daring him to criticize me. “Building houses for poor people.”

Riley let out a choked laugh, and he thumped his fist on his chest, his eyes watering. “Holy shit, are you kidding me?”

“No. It was the only way I could get out of going home for the summer. I know it’s an awful lie, but it couldn’t be helped.”

“So that’s why you don’t have anywhere to stay.”

“Yes.” I went over to the coffee table and took another bite of pizza and chewed hard, annoyed. “You don’t understand. My parents’ house is like prison.”

“Somehow I highly doubt that. But maybe we could ask Tyler to compare them.”

Shit. I immediately felt bad. “I didn’t mean it like that. I’m sure it was awful for Tyler to be in real prison, and there’s no comparison, I know. But at home, I can’t be me. I have to be what their version of me is.” And I just sounded like a whiny, spoiled princess. “Never mind. It’s stupid.”

But Riley just shook his head. “I’m not judging you, Jess. If you don’t want to go home, you don’t want to go home. And I give you props for picking the one thing nobody can argue with, though why your parents actually believe you’re hanging drywall and grouting tile is beyond me.”

“I could do that stuff. If someone showed me.” I wasn’t completely useless. Just a product of my environment.

He snorted. “I’m sure you could. But forgive me if I don’t hand you a nail gun anytime soon.”

“Is that for painting your nails?” I asked in a fake Valley Girl voice, tilting my head and blinking my eyelashes. “Like, is it chip-free?”

Riley grinned. “What are you studying in college, acting?”

I flopped down on the couch and took another sip of his beer. “No.” Like my parents would pay for that. But I wasn’t about to tell him what I was really majoring in.

“There is more beer in the fridge, you know.”

“Why get my own when I can drink yours?”

“Thus establishing why I am not in a relationship,” he said. “We dudes can’t hold our own against the wily ways of women.”

Wily ways? I couldn’t help it. He did make me laugh. “I feel really sorry for you. Not.” Kicking off my flip-flops, I pulled my feet up onto the couch and leaned against Riley’s arm, wanting a headrest. “Doesn’t it smell better in here already?”

“Christ,” he muttered. “I’m going to play video games. You can either play with me or you can go away. It’s too hot for you to be touching me.”

“You sure know how to flatter a girl.”

“I already called you hot and gorgeous tonight. I’ve met my quota.” He nudged me with his bare shoulder so my head flopped a little.

“Stop it.”

“Get off me.” He nudged me again, lifting his arm to get further momentum.

I caught a whiff of his sweat and deodorant mingling together and I coughed. “You stink.”

“Oh, I stink, do I?” He grabbed me in a headlock, catching me off guard. “I’ll give you stink.”

I squawked and tried to maneuver away, but he had a firm grip on my hair and the back of my neck, and he lifted his arm, burying my face in his hairy and smelly armpit. “Stop, I’m going to pass out!” I said, laughing, trying to scoot backward on the couch.

When he suddenly let me go with a heave I ended up falling on my back, giggling, making a point of coughing and breathing deeply. “You’re gross.”

But then he leaned over me and my amusement completely died out. He was smiling, but there was something else in his expression. His gaze dropped to my lips, his fingers lacing through mine. I was sure he was going to kiss me and I opened my mouth in anticipation reflexively, and because well, for whatever reason I wanted him to kiss me. It didn’t make sense, it wasn’t smart, yet I was arching my back and tilting my head and wetting my lips in anticipation . . .

And instead he made the sound of gathering a hocker in the back of his throat. Oh, hell no.

“Don’t you dare,” I warned him, my finger coming up to point in his face.

He laughed. “This is awesome. I get to fuck with you like the little sister I never had.”

Little sister. He just wanted to mess with me like you would a little sister.

I had been expecting, or maybe more accurately, hoping for a kiss, and he just wanted to dangle saliva over my face to hear my scream.

I suddenly realized that was why I always hated Riley—without even being conscious of it, I had known that I thought he was hot, while he thought of me as an annoying little sister.

It wasn’t a label I was familiar with.

And I didn’t exactly like it.

“If you spit in my face, I will knee your nuts,” I warned him.

He rubbed my head like I was a dog. “I wasn’t going to spit on you. Chill out, princess.”

It was the last thing I wanted him to do or say. And maybe I was just tired, or maybe I was lonely, but I heard myself saying in a peevish, snotty, bitch-face voice, “I’m going to take a shower.”

“Thanks for the public service announcement,” he said, sitting back up and reaching for the TV remote. “Close your mouth in there or you’ll drown. Your jaw could use the rest, I’m sure.”

For once, I was blank on an appropriately scathing comeback. Was he saying I talked too much or had my jaw open often for a totally different reason?

I decided not to touch it, because truthfully, I didn’t want to hear his opinion. Making sure my phone wasn’t popping out of my pocket, I just walked past him. The air freshener misted over my thigh as I headed to the kitchen for a drink.

Riley laughed.

I didn’t see Riley for a few days. When I got up the next morning, he was gone, and I left before he came home. By the time I was back from work, he was in bed. But evidence of our odd cohabitation came in the form of our pissing match over the windows and the air freshener. After work, I would fling open the windows in the living room and kitchen. When I stumbled to the kitchen in the morning for coffee, they’d already be closed. I started to think that Riley was sneaking out of his room like a window ninja minutes after I opened them to close them again because the house always felt stale, a permanent odor that reminded me of the area in front of the airport parking garage elevator. The yuck factor was high.

Maybe if he didn’t keep hiding the air freshener the results would have been more positive. But after realizing it was gone I found the stupid thing in the coat closet, and then tucked away in the bathroom vanity, so while he was at work I put it back in the living room, front and center on the coffee table. And he always re-hid it. The second morning I woke up because he opened my door and crept in, mister in hand, unholy grin on his face. Through slitted eyes, I watched him tiptoe barefoot across the room toward me, unaware I had woken up when he turned the doorknob. Closing my eyes quickly, I heard him deposit the air freshener next to my cell phone on the chair next to the bed so that it would clearly spray me when I reached for my phone first thing.

Jerk-off.

An entertaining jerk-off.

It was hard not to smile, but I managed to keep it together until he left. Then I rolled toward the chair and pulled the sheet closer around me, totally amused. Next he’d be tying my shoelaces together or putting itching powder in my T-shirts. Or conducting a panty raid, like we were at sixth grade summer camp. Though speaking of panties, it struck me as ironic that I was well aware that I was only in my panties and a tank top as he had crept into my room, and he could clearly care less. He hadn’t even looked at me. In my experience, if you flirted, it wasn’t exactly hard to get a guy to want to at least hook up with you, but Riley didn’t seem to find me all that attractive. Sure, he’d complimented me, said I was hot, had a good bod. But he’d said it in the way you say your sister is pretty, not in the way you talk about a girl you want to bang.

It had been a long time since I’d felt unbangable.

Maybe that was a good thing.

Maybe, for the first time ever in the history of my post-puberty life, I could actually be friends with a guy.

Doubtful. But hey, stranger things had happened.

It wasn’t like my brother and I were friends—totally the opposite. Paxton had practically made it his life’s work to get me in trouble. If I was my mother’s disappointment, the daughter who could never quite be the perfect (in her opinion, anyway) woman she was, my brother was her precious perfect son. It was what it was, but it totally didn’t give us the kind of sibling relationship you saw on TV. I avoided him, and he posted asshole comments on my Facebook page. That was the extent of our interaction.

So I was going to try to enjoy the weird dynamic with Riley and stop analyzing it.

I didn’t have to work, so I read outside on the back deck, and after an hour of glancing up from my book to the ashtray posing as a yard I couldn’t take it any more. I didn’t think of myself as OCD or anything, but that was just seriously gross. Going into the garage, which was even hotter than outside and smelled like motor oil, I found a pathetic old broom and a dustpan. Sweeping like it was my job, I managed to collect about a hundred cigarette butts into a pile and push them on the dustpan. Then I tossed them into the garbage can, feeling a whole lot better about my view. There were still random butts scattered here and there but short of a fire hose or picking them up by hand, there was no way to get them all. Hey, it was an improvement.